Monday, 10 November 2008

Little Children [2006]

Little Children, adopted from a novel of the same name, is an intense psychological exploration of the residents of an upwardly mobile Bostonsuburbia inflicted with issues ranging from paranoia and prejudice to downright hypocrisy. On the surface they look just as any other rich and ostensibly cultured society; but scratch a little and you realize absolutely no one is perfect, rather far from it. The principal protagonist is an educated woman (played with incisive wit, remarkable confidence and a very palpable undercurrent of repressed sexuality and rebelliousness by Kate Winslet), trapped in an eventless marriage to a man with an addiction to web porn, who gets drawn into an adulterous affair with a married man whose life is overshadowed by his successful and extremely attractive alpha-female wife. A parallel (extremely disturbing and brilliantly enacted) subplot involves the personal crusade of an ex-cop against a recently released convicted pedophile. This is an exceedingly dark but gracefully executed movie, unsettling in its frank depiction of what actually happens inside the houses and minds of people who all revel in their otherwise perfectly manicured picture-perfect façades.

Well, I too love stalking Kate Winslet. She isn't just a great looker but an extremely accomplished, and I daresay, a very bold actor. Little Children might not be an explosive movie, but it is quite profound nonetheless.